


Five times Denise Cloyd thought about Tara Chambler, and the one time she did something about it.

by ZoeyBarkow (RetratosPastel)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 18:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20999162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetratosPastel/pseuds/ZoeyBarkow
Summary: This was a meme reply for @t-chambler on tumblr. I found it today on my blog and I liked it. It's not proofread, but it's short and cute.





	Five times Denise Cloyd thought about Tara Chambler, and the one time she did something about it.

  1. The night of Deanna’s welcoming party for the new residents of Alexandria, Denise goes to bed with a warm feeling. Other people arrived at the community over the time she’s been there, but that group is different. This is a large group and at first sight, they seemed cold and closed and intimidating. But right before falling asleep she thinks of Carol’s chocolate cookies and of Rick dancing with her baby girl in his arms, and of Tara waving awkwardly and joking about the drinks. And she thinks that maybe they are not that bad.
  2. After the last supply run, they bring Tara back unconscious and with a head injury. Denise feels that, for once, maybe her medical knowledge can be useful and she goes to the infirmary but Pete doesn’t let her in and tells her that they’ll just have to wait and see if she wakes up. She doesn’t confront Pete, but she hopes that Tara gets better.
  3. Tara and Eugene just left the infirmary after she gave Tara three doses of aspirin -one for now and two for later in the day, just in case- and told her not to exert herself. Denise goes back to her chair, opens the book she was going through before they arrived and thinks that she should have given Tara just one aspirin and told her to come back in the afternoon if she wasn’t feeling better. Just to make sure that she was alright.
  4. She is sitting at Aaron and Eric’s living room table. They asked her to join them for dinner telling her that all that books would still be at her place when she came back. And they were right, she could use a distraction. As the two men come back from the kitchen sharing loving looks, she can’t hold a smile when the thought of Tara laughing and chatting while having lunch with the construction crew earlier that day crosses her mind.
  5. Holly is dead on the gurney. Really dead. Denise looks at the surgical knife she used to get her brain, still in her hands covered in blood. She thinks that Tara was the only one to remind her, probably the only one who remembered, that the safety of the community and her own safety were crucial even in a situation like that one. And she wonders how many people have Tara lost and how many times she had to be the one who stuck the knife.

Scott’s constants are stable and his fever is going down. Denise remembers how earlier that day she was lost and scared, and probably if it wasn’t because of Tara, she would still be there, sitting clueless on the infirmary’s floor thinking that, no matter what the monitors said, the man was probably already dead. She thinks that Tara deserves to know that her words and encouragement saved a life that day, and she leaves the clinic determined to find her and thank her.


End file.
